1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to communication infrastructures, and, more particularly, to switching node operations in a packet switched communication network.
2. Related Art
Today's communication networks extensively communicate media contents containing audio files, video images and moving video files. Communication networks include both packet switched and circuit switched networks, often interconnected via network bridges. An Internet network typically includes switching devices such as routers, switches, packet switched exchanges, access points, Internet service provider's networks (ISPN) and Internet communication pathways, and route packets between the end point devices. Destination end point devices include personal or laptop computers, servers, set top boxes and handheld data/communication devices, for example. Servers often act as source end point devices, sourcing media content to the destination devices to be presented to the users of the destination devices.
Audio files, video image files, and moving video files are usually copyright protected and contain digital signatures. These digital signatures include licenses given to a user that may include unlimited licensing, limited licensing, number of delivery limitations, number of replay limitations, user license limitations, and/or time frame limitations. Trafficking of these audio files, video images and moving video files via communication networks may violate these licenses causing enormous losses to the owners/licensees of the copyrighted media. In order to prevent illegal copying of transmitted media, some media is communicated in encrypted, encoded, or transcoded format to conceal the nature of the media. However, in many cases, transfer of media in this/these format(s) constitutes illegal sharing of media. For example, a source end point device may be a server that illegally distributes music or video content via communication networks to recipients across the globe. Traditional techniques to prevent illegal copying/use have been typically unsuccessful in preventing or monitoring such illegal copying/use.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art through comparison of such systems with the present invention.